'Glee' 'Raised the Bar' For TV Inclusiveness With Gay Kiss

On last night's 'Glee,' the New Directions won regionals after hitting the stage with a pair of original songs -- a first for the series -- but that isn't what anyone is talking about this morning. After months of hints and winks, fans of FOX's hit musical finally got what they've been waiting for: The characters of Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) kissed for the first time. And it wasn't a peck. It also wasn't overtly sexual or desperate, it wasn't rushed or clouded with turmoil, and it certainly wasn't played for laughs, the way many kisses between men are on TV. It was perfect.

"It's hard to overstate the significance of the kiss between Kurt and Blaine on 'Glee' last night," Michael Jensen, editor of Logo's AfterElton.com tells PopEater. "Even better, it wasn't the sort of kiss we saw back in the 1990s where the guys pecked each other on the lips -- or worse, the camera cutaway -- but this was a real kiss that hinted there is much more to come in this relationship. If we still needed proof how far gay characters have come on network TV, 'Glee' just gave it to us."

"'Glee' has raised the bar of what it means to be inclusive on TV, and viewers are tuning in by the millions, sending a clear message to networks that Americans not only accept gay and lesbian characters, but they are beginning to expect them," GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios tells PopEater. "It's stories like Kurt and Blaine's that continue to remind gay youth everywhere that there's nothing wrong with being who you are."

The characters portrayed by Colfer and Criss, who is nominated for Logo's annual NewNowNext Awards 2011, which honors what is up-and-coming in popular culture, in the Brink of Fame: Actor category, are arguably the highest-profile gay characters on television right now, and, as the LGBT community continues to recover from the wave of bullying-related suicides late last year, it is especially important that Kurt and Blaine represent a pair of openly gay teenagers comfortable with who they are and seemingly on the verge of a real romantic relationship grounded in mutual respect.

"The two most recent episodes have represented queer youth and coming of age in a way I've never seen on broadcast television before, let alone one of the most popular shows in the country, with a mostly young audience," AfterElton's Christie Keith wrote in her recap of 'Original Song.' Keith is also referring to last week's 'Sexy,' in which Santana (played by Naya Rivera) confessed her love for Heather Morris' character, Brittany. Also on last week's episode, Kurt's father Burt (Mike O'Malley) sat his son down for a straightforward discussion about sex, providing him pamphlets and telling him, "This is gonna suck for both of us, but we're going to get through it together, and we will both be better men because of it. ... Kurt, when you're ready, I want you to be able to do everything, but when you're ready I want you to use it as a way to connect to another person, don't throw yourself around like you don't matter."

Since its debut, 'Glee' has been lauded for its inclusiveness, with characters representing myriad ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations. Last year, GLAAD honored 'Glee' with the GLAAD Media Award in the Outstanding Comedy Series, and the show is again a nominee this year. Colfer is set to attend this year's GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles on April 10.

For how often the show delights in being over-the-top, these recent storylines have been grounded in a way that can only benefit 'Glee's' millions of young LGBT viewers, who rarely get to see themselves represented as fully formed, multi-dimensional characters and not stereotypes on prime-time network television. The show has been dealing with the issues they deal with daily directly and with great care, and it's heartening to know that in FOX's 'Glee,' a generation of young gay teens has been given something no generation of LGBT persons has had before them -- a group of peers to relate to.

people like you are the reason more and more people are turning away from god. you take the bible too literally. god wouldnt hate people for being gay if hes as nice as people say he is. i for one dont care about god. fine if you believe it. i dont. but if he were real and i have read some of the bible before so if he is as so in the book, he wouldnt hate people for doing something that they believe in that doesnt hurt anyone. being gay isnt like killing a person. being gay is just being gay. people are afraid of it so they shove the bible down their throat to tell them they're wrong for being who they are. when the only one wrong is the person judging. being gay doesnt hurt you. it just digusts you. you religious people try to make things seem something other than what they are when really the world is pretty black and white.

The Bible says that in the end times the world will call the bad things good and the good things bad. It also says that homosexuality is an abomination to God. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for it and like He said never again were those cities rebuilt or any other city over that land. That's how serious God is about homosexuality. He loves His entire creation but he cannot suffer SIN.

I can hardly wait until the transvestite french kisses the 4-year-old. I mean, why stop here. You guys are just paving the way for pedophilia tolerance. Go ahead, deny it, I don't care. You think you know it all but you don't, you just have friends who agree with you.

I just wanted to say that Pretty Little Liars has had a gay female character since the beginning of the show, and she engages in kissing scenes also. I guess cause it doesn't have as big an audience as Glee, it gets ignored. But, the kissing scenes are also not the pecking type.

No, it doesn't matter to most people because it's 2 girls kissing. Because "Glee" has 2 boys kissing, closeted gays are frightened of their own sexuality so they lash out against the very thing that they are. It's just really sick...

Georgia, you are right, Pretty Little Liars has had a lesbian on since the beginning. The reason it's not getting that much attention isn't because it's audience isn't as big; it's because they are FEMALE.

The way I see it people don't care as much about lesbians because the men think it's "hot". It's been like that for YEARS. Think about it, how many female characters have kissed on screen. Way to many for me to count and nobody ever said a word.